110 days clean and still no better
 

This is my story and another piece in the jigsaw to finding out what is wrong with me . 6 months ago somthing really bad happend to me while I was driving home from work . Very suddenly I felt like I was about to die , these were the symptoms in the best way I can describe Suddenly feeling overwhelmed, Sudden change in mental awareness Suddenly feeliing of disoriantation that took my breath away , can't controll it , like your out of body and confused . It felt very warm in my head and I couldn't controll my arms or legs while it was happening . I was consious during it but I almost crashed my car , just managed to slam on the brakes. Immediately after it all happend ( about 60 seconds) I was left shaking sweating dizzy and confused. After being sick lots I was taken to ER in an ambalance and after a few tests the Dr let me go home .. Why he let me go I don't know as I was still being sick ,dizzy and it was hard to walk . I was also crying , I just could not stop crying it was strange ive not cryed for years . ( i don't believe it was a massive panick attack as in future weeks I was having them regular and it felt different) Since the incident ive not been the same person , ive been so sick . I've had multiple panick attacks I developed, servere anxiety , servere depression , terrible bouts of insomnia ( somtimes can't sleep 3 nights in a row ) , strange headaches , very nervous , sensative to sounds and easily startled . I have mostly a spaced out feeling , depersonization, brain fog . I can't multitask , I find it hard to concentrate for more than a short time , it feels like a brain overload . I have now blurred vision and also a terrible buzzing sound in my head that won't go away , the noise drives me crazy .. Not all the above symptoms come on at once they come in cycles During this time I've been given beta blockers ( now stopped ) , two types of ssri drugs that I have had horrific reactions to ( now stopped ) and Zopiclone for sleep that also didn't agree with me and made my symptoms much worse. I now am on no medication at all . This is strange but I find the more I sleep the worst I feel in the day , especially in the mornings when I wake up with a strange feeling in my head that makes me very tearful . This feeling goes away after food normaly. My symptoms over the last 6 months was slightly ( only slightly ) getting better , I even had a few good days last month until last wed it happend again , I was in the car parked up on my drive and in a happy mood Then boom out of nowhere the same thing occurred , this time it wasn't as extreme , I would of gave it a 6 out of 10 whereas the first time it was 11 out of 10 in awfulness . But now a week later I think I'm back to month 1 in my recovery , all the symptoms are back really bad and I just keep having crying fits :( During this time of being not right ive seen the family Dr a few times and he just says I have anxiety . Yes I'm anxious but only because I don't know what's happening to me and I'm scared of my own body . I've also had to quit my life long job and ive stopped seeing most of my friends . I did have a drinking problem before this , i was binge drinking heavily for 20 years . I went cold turkey 3 days before the first attack . I belived that the first attack was caused by me going cold turkey but now I'm not sure as I haven't drank a drop in 108 days and the second attack happend last Wednesday .. I have booked to see a neurologist in 3 weeks . So far after doing 6 months of reading and speaking to people on line these are what I belive could be causing all this 1. Post acute withdrawal syndrome (paws) ( protracted with drawal to alchol) 2. Multiple Mini strokes (that go undetected on scans) 3. Brain anylism 4. Very slight brain hemerage 5. Aquired brain injury 6. Epilepsy causing mild seizures ( not grand mal ) Thanks for reading my story , I'm now devoting all my time into finding out what's going on with me . I hope maybe one of you guys could help Thanks and hope Rob

Thanks for sharing Rob, sounds like quite an ordeal. I had some pretty bad panic attacks during the last days of my drinking, and I had never had them previously in my life. I also saw several doctors and anxiety was the diagnosis. I chose to take the therapy route vs drugs to see what would happen...i'm only about 4 weeks in so far but it does seem to be helping a bit. My anxiety does come in waves...i'll be fine for many days/weeks and then have a bad stretch of several days it seems.

I would also mention that it took several months after quitting for the bad anxiety to get better...almost a year I would say. So there is probably the possibility that even at 110 days your mind is still healing.

Best of luck with the neurologist, have you seen a therapist by chance?

I am so sorry that you are going through this, Rob; it sounds very frightening and unpleasant.

I didn't experience symptoms like yours but I did experience significant brain-fog, malaise and lethargy during the first six months of lethargy at which time the symptoms began to gradually subside and improve.

I am glad that you will be seeing a neurologist; I hope that you experience relief and improvement soon.

I think time is the great healer.

Also, Doctor Google is not your friend. I have scared myself more times than I'd like to admit by searching for health answers on the interwebz. Literally every road leads to a certain death on Google. Stop doing that. :)

You're going to be okay.

Sounds like my very first DT experience. I learned that "the hair of the dog that bit me" would relieve them. However, that lead to even bigger ones in the long run.
:dig

It took me well over a year to fully recover my brain function--I think I had a good strong case of PAWS and it just took time and patience to heal.

Nourish yourself with quality, natural food

Take time to be in Nature and do some form of exercise--I like hiking, weight lifting, and yoga as they really help the body in many ways to recover.

Allow yourself to sleep and rest and just do nothing

Journal and express your feelings as clearly as as often as needed because those feelings will sure come up once the booze you've been using to supress them really clears your system.

Find something fun that you like to do and do it regularly.
Working puzzles, baking bread, watching old movies, playing music, etc.

Volunteer work, such as helping in an animal shelter or working fixing up parks, cooking in a homeless shelter, etc. gives a service component that is really rewarding and takes you out of yourself and your own problems and gives perspective--you also meet really nice people who don't hang around bars.

Time and patience and realizing it took years to get yourself in this state of health and it may take longer than 110 ten days to heal from it.

You can do it--

Have you stopped drinking now ? How long did it take to feel normal ,

Yes, but life did not get better as a result of time. In fact, I would still say that "Normal" is just a setting on a washing machine.

However, what did get better as a result of an "Awakening" of sorts, was my attitude and my emotional state. Something I now call equanimity.
:Meditate:

I could have written your very same orginal post pretty much exactly. at 6 months sober I still felt basicly how you describe. It stunk and i was getting tired of not feeling better.

Sure I felt /slightly/ better just enough to keep me going I guess but I was still having a really hard time.

At about that point i quit smoking and started exercising and focused on a diet and loosing some weight etc.. at about a year I started to feel better. I still didnt feel normal really and to be honest even now at almost 4 years I'm not sure what normal is. But I feel a lot better.

Give it time I'm not sure if your exercising or what your diet is like but those 2 things can help as well.

I think it takes tme for our bodies to "normalize". For me all those years of heavy drinking my body didnt know what normal was not to mention it had tons of healing to do etc.. and there I was stuck inside it while this circus played out.

I wonder what is behind the anxiety.

I notice there are a lot of posts like this so you are not on your own. A lot of folks decribe similar things, sense of impending doom, anxiety, irritability and so forth.

What they never describe is what they have been doing towards their recovery. Sometimes, I would suggest, the answer is nothing apart from not drinking. For alcoholics of my type, the symptoms described are the result of just that and they always got so uncomfortable that in the end I would pick up again.

For some of us there is a lot more involved in getting happily sober than just not drinking. Seeking that state of equanimity that Boleo mentioned seems to be part of the answer.

Well, the first part sounds like the anxiety attacks I have to a T. Talk to a Psychiatrist.

110 days isn't very long into sobriety. My third and fourth months were the worst mentally and physically. Between time and working the steps I have straightened out as far as the rest of the stuff you describe.

Ditto :(

In the begining my anxiety was out of control it was awful. There really was not anything underlying to it. Other then i damaged my central nervous system? I have no idea. It was a lot deeper then not working revovery properly or not finding some new spiritual level. In my case I'd say it was a down physical disorder what was up in my mind while it may have played a roll even when i was totally happy and all was fine my anxiety was nothing short of intense.

Fast forward. Its still pretty uncontrollable it comes out of nowhere. BUT there are times / situations where it is controlable. If i manage my life and keep my ducks in a row things go ok etc.. But it can and will still reer its ugly head out of no where. This I think is the "disorder" aspect of those with an "anxiety disorder" we can do a lot to make matters worse but at the end of the day It might have to be something I'll always have to keep my eye on and manage.

seperating out the things that I could manage that I could control to keep my anxiety at a lower level helps. In the begining i guess it could have been more likened to chemical withdrawel but it went on for I dunno 8-12 months? and it was /intense/.

I can totally relate to your situation. In fact, I am on disability for something that had an acute onset just as you described. Strange thing is that it occurred about 8 months into my sobriety, back in the summer of 2008 (that stretch lasted for about 2.5 years before I started drinking again.)

I had a med change that precipitated it, I think. I don't even recall the name of the drug but I just snapped mentally. I was completely coming unglued. I was crying all the time, couldn't handle anything that normal people have to do in order to get through a typical day, and was making tons of stupid mistakes. I remember describing my situation inside as "walls were coming down." I don't know what that means, just that I felt exposed I guess. Completely vulnerable.

I'm sorry that even off all your meds that you still feel this way. I thought not drinking had something to do with my "breakdown" (I've always called it a nervous breakdown.) I thought it happened because I didn't have the booze to keep me numb to keep me functioning (even at a low level) day after day, month after month. I am an RN and I was in a very high-stress job at the time. Years of stress in the workplace and in my personal life seemed to finally come to a head at that moment in time.

I wish I could tell you what is causing you to feel this way but I can't. I can't even know what is behind my own situation and disability. I'd sure like to find out it was due to something I'm taking as a medication, so that I could just stop taking it and go back to a normal life!

God bless you to find the answer. Keep posting here so we can offer support.

Yep I had to reorganize a cabinet in my house and i recall crying and struggling to figure out where to put things.

I'd have emotions pegged to the wrong situations too. a happy event might make me anxious and sad. Or i might be incredibly angry or overly scared about nothing etc.. nothing really made much sense.

Things where not going well in my mind. I felt like i had broken down and wondered if I'd ever get better.

Now while I did get better. I'm not the same person I once was. I cannot tackle as many tasks. I cant really multy task these days either. and If i have too much on my todo list i get very panicy etc.. even if its simple stuff it doesnt matter i get overwhelmed easily.

I try to keep things overly simple these days and thats not even always enough.

Not biting off more then I can chew helps tho i still make this mistake from time to time.

I can relate to the wonky emotions. During my drinking time I did not develop normal emotional responses and in the end I had no emtotion at all. When I got sober I started having emotions that I did not always identify correctly, in fact I wouldn't have known an honest emotion if I fell over it:)

This lead me into all sorts of difficult situations, and a fair amount of conflict with those around me. Through the AA inventory process I eventually came to understand what was happening, really how I was my own worst enemy, and by working other steps the wonky emotions were eventually restored to something like what I imagine normal would be.

Trying to keep it simple is great advice zjw.

Hi
 

Hi Malamute, hope you well and Happy New Year, I know its an old post, just wondering how you are now? Having similar PAWS problems myself, Thanks.

Hi Carlingford. Looks like Malamute hasn't posted since 2015 so I'm not sure if they will respond.

I am Irish too, live in Dublin.

Have any of you thought about hypoglycemia....this can be a problem for alcoholics

Carlingford, there's a good thread on PAWS you might want to check out here:

http://www.soberrecovery.com/forums/...-go-mad-5.html

Oh, never mind, I see you already did!